Klan Rally Denounces Murder, Meets Anger

June 28, 1998|By JAMES HILL; Chicago Tribune

JASPER, Texas — Tempers and temperatures ran high Saturday as nearly two dozen Ku Klux Klan members staged a rally to denounce the killing this month of a black man, James Byrd Jr., whom three white men allegedly dragged behind a pickup truck.

But while calling the killing a tragedy, the Klan spewed its message of anti-minority hatred. Rally leader Rick Anderson said: ``Jasper is part of the invisible empire. Make no mistake about it, this is Klan country.''

The Klansmen and Klanswomen were met by a crowd of more than 100 blacks and whites from Jasper and several other communities in East Texas and Louisiana, who came out on the 90-degree day to show the Klan it wasn't wanted in the lumber town.

``Shut up and go home,'' a white Jasper resident shouted.

About a dozen members of the New York-based New Black Panther Party and the Houston-based Black Muslim Movement exchanged barbs with Klan members and rushed barricades, apparently trying to confront the Klan as the group members tried to speak.

Shouting ``black power,'' the counter demonstrators pointed shotguns, rifles and other weapons in the air as they marched.

``These men are here to freely exercise their divine and, yes, constitutional rights after building this country for 400 years to defend ourselves and carry armed and loaded weapons to defend the black community against this murderous and hypocritical outfit known as the Ku Klux Klan,'' said Malik Z. Shabazz, an attorney for the New Black Panther Party.

Authorities roped off a two-block radius around the square near the courthouse. Texas Rangers, FBI agents and other law officers patrolled the area.

An anti-Klan demonstrator was arrested when a group confronted Klan members who were leaving the courthouse square after the rally. Police released few details about the arrest but said it came when demonstrators began rocking a vehicle carrying Klansmen.